CLEVELAND— Javier Marti used to drink beer and ride motorcycles with Ariel Castro, a 52-year-old musician who lived across the street. "He was cool," Mr. Marti said. "Nobody had no problems with him."

This week, Mr. Marti and the rest of this city heard that Mr. Castro allegedly held three long-missing women captive in his rundown house for roughly a decade, while authorities say he subjected them to repeated rape and other abuse. "I feel bad because it's right under my nose," Mr. Marti said. "I hate him now, and I wish he never f— lived."

Amid the joy at this week's deliverance of the three women, the horrifying allegations against Mr. Castro have sparked regret and recrimination in this impoverished neighborhood where he lived. Residents are wrestling with how they, or law-enforcement authorities, might have missed opportunities to help the women in their midst—a process complicated by the way hindsight can render events seemingly clearer or more sinister.

Photos

Public defender Kathleen DeMetz spoke with Ariel Castro's brother, Pedro, as another brother, Onil, left, waited at the hearing on Thursday. The two brothers were being held, but faced no immediate charges. David Duprey/Associated Press

"I feel guilty because I always thought he was creepy, but I never had enough evidence," said neighbor Anthony Westry, who said he wondered why every window in Mr. Castro's home remained closed and covered—without even an air conditioner through summer heat waves.

Police have said they chased every tip on the disappearances of Georgina "Gina" DeJesus, Amanda Berry, and Michelle Knight. But some residents have questioned why they didn't look more closely at Mr. Castro, who was charged Wednesday with kidnapping and rape, and hasn't yet made a plea in the case.

In 2004, police received a call that Mr. Castro, then a Cleveland school-bus driver, kept a 4-year-old boy on his bus for several hours while he was supposed to be in school, according to a partially redacted police incident report made public this week.

House Where Kidnapped Women Were Held

See a floorplan of the house at 2207 Seymour Ave. in Cleveland, where three women were allegedly held for over a decade.

The report, which doesn't make clear who called, alleged that Mr. Castro told the boy, "Lay down, b—," while he went to eat in a Wendy's restaurant.

Mr. Castro later left the boy with his guardians, and authorities found no signs of assault on the boy, the report said.

After the incident, police said they were dispatched to Mr. Castro's home—where Ms. Berry and Ms. Knight were trapped inside at the time—and interviewed Mr. Castro but didn't enter the home.

New details are emerging from the investigation into the kidnappings in Cleveland. Dr. John Walkup, director of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at NY-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell and WSJ's Ben Kesling discuss the challenges victims face in cases like these. Photo: AP

Police records show they were there for less than seven minutes. Cleveland police didn't respond to questions about the incident Thursday.

In an account in his city personnel records, Mr. Castro said that he didn't notice the boy was on the bus when he left the school, and that he took the boy home when he realized he was still there. The city suspended Mr. Castro for 60 days for the incident. Two months later, the Cuyahoga County Children and Family Services department cleared him of wrongdoing, according to the records.

Neighbor Nina Samoylicz said she clearly recalled seeing a "really pale, really skinny" naked woman in Mr. Castro's yard in the summer of 2010. She said the experience was confusing, and that she thought it might have been Mr. Castro's girlfriend. She said she told her mother about the incident, but they never called police. "We just laughed it off," she said.

Michael Casey and John Miller discuss the latest on the Cleveland kidnapping case, and Scott McCartney look at trying to a free ticket with frequent-flier miles. Photo: AP.

Neighbor Israel Lugo, her uncle, said he and others called police at least three times since 2011 to report strange behavior at Mr. Castro's home, including a girl knocking on an upstairs window, but that police hardly followed up on the calls. "There were plenty of opportunities to get those girls out of there," he said.

Cleveland police said they have responded to Mr. Castro's home only twice: for the bus incident in 2004, and for a fight in the street in 2000 that Mr. Castro called in.

The department said that an "extensive search" of 911 call records didn't show any calls to Mr. Castro's home "for women held or women banging on windows."

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Cleveland Safety Director Martin Flask told reporters Wednesday there was no evidence from statements by Mr. Castro and the victimsthis week "to indicate any of them was ever outside in the yard in chains without clothing or any other manner," as some neighbors had alleged.

The Cleveland police have faced criticism before that they missed opportunities to catch a high-profile sexual predator. In 2008, police arrested Anthony Sowell in his home for assaulting a woman, but dropped charges after the victim wouldn't cooperate, according to press reports then.

A year later, police discovered the bodies of 11 women on his property. Mr. Sowell was convicted in July 2011 of multiple counts of murder and kidnapping and sentenced to death in state court. He is currently on death row.

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After that case, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson convened a task force to review missing-persons and sex-crimes inquiries by the Cleveland police. The panel identified several problems in the investigations, including inadequate information sharing.

The task force made 26 recommendations, and police have since implemented all of the recommendations related to missing-persons investigations, including the foundation of a new missing-persons unit and website, said one task-force member.

Eugene O'Donnell, a former policemen and prosecutor, and a law professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said there needs to be more attention placed on missing persons and runaway cases. "I think missing persons are seen as an unenviable chore," he said, because many cases are never solved.

In the case of the three Cleveland women, Deputy Police Chief Edward Tomba said: "If there was one bit of evidence, one shred of a tip, no matter how minute, they followed it up very, very aggressively."

He added, "We may find out that maybe we did" miss an opportunity to catch Mr. Castro earlier, "but that's going to be in hindsight."

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